The Raveling Mantle & The Wandering Wood

The wisdom of the Nerathi is lost, the great library reduced to rubble and its scrolls and tomes to dust, but the broken city still here and there juts from the earth, in the remote corners of the wandering wood, weathered cobblestones weaving through the dales, jagged marble columns standing in silent meadows. How deep below the Gardbury Downs did their catacombs reach? And how far past the Cairngorm Peaks did the King’s Road run? Nobody knows. But the empire was big. Really big.

Years passed without record as the wilderness reclaimed the land. Dragons, giants, and a great many other creatures foul and fey made their homes in craggy mountains and dense forests. Scattered throughout the lands are human settlements, elven outposts, and dwarven holds—points of light in night’s black mantle. Few risk travel along the ancient overgrown roads that link these populations; news travels slowly or not at all, though rumors abound:

They say that mad wizards have discovered the ruins of an ancient minotaur city, perhaps even older than the empire of Nerath.

They say that a knight clad all in green travels the lands challenging anyone she meets—but she cannot be killed by sword or by spear.

They say that the realms of fey and shadow have begun to bleed into the vale, growing each day a little more from the darkest recesses of Harken Forest and The Witchlight Fens.

They say, too, that there are no more heroes, but they are wrong. There are those who seek to restore order, to bring light and goodness to the vale, and to make the lands safe once more.

These are dark times indeed, desperate for those who will stand up to and beat back the evil forces closing upon the good fiefdoms like the teeth of a great wyrm, threatening to extinguish once and for all any trace of honor, order, or virtue in the Nentir Vale.